[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
things he should find. He was right. Now he was designing equivalent machinery
out of garden variety Solar Union technology.
But as Dykstra stood looking at the Earth, he was certain that, like with much
of the other examples of
Phinon technology he'd examined, the Phinons had missed something obvious.
Their ship had only had one engine.
And if you turned on a hyperdrive engine inside the Limit . . . ?
Dykstra continued to look at the Earth, trying to note her slow rotation into
the diffuse terminator lying across the North Atlantic and the bulk of South
America. Evening was approaching in Michigan, and would arrive in a few hours.
Dykstra recalled lazy, sticky summer evenings, and watching the waves break
against the shores of Lake Michigan. He thought of old times, and old friends,
and the heady excitement of youth in those years before the Collapse.
He had rarely found his way back there in the past century it was time to go
home again even though there would still be work to do.
Steadily, the subconscious part of his mind projected visions into the front.
Even as he watched the Earth with his eyes, other eyes on the inside were
showing him 4-space waveforms, deformations curving into hyperspace,
oscillating, tuning to resonance. The scene faded into another, and Dykstra
knew it was the shape of the field generated by the Phinon hyperdrive. He
watched its evolution in time, noting how the hypervelocity vector emerged.
Then he played the vision through again, this time assuming the engine was
activated within the Hague Limit. The waveform vibrated erratically before
disintegrating. There was no stable form for initial velocities above zero.
Page 63
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
But . . .
Dykstra turned away to the stars, those glorious embers, sparks dusting the
heavens. People would be going to them. Soon.
Unless the Phinons prevented it. That was the big question. What were these
hostile aliens anyway?
Were they scattered throughout the Oort cloud? If so, were they scattered
throughout other Oort clouds?
Was the Universe populated with the beings, or was "infested" a better term?
One problem at a time, please.
Suppose you turned on two engines? The waveforms evolved differently then.
Outside the Hague Limit,
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/KOOISTRA...EFFREY%20-%20DYKSTRA'S%20WAR
/0671319582___5.htm (6 of 20)29-12-2006 18:58:30
- Chapter 5
if you tuned those engines to each other just right a tremendous increase in
efficiency.
And it looks like an obvious thing to do. So why didn't the Phinons do it?
But never mind that. Try those two engines again within a Hague Limit. . . .
The waveform evolved, a "ridge" appeared, a velocity vector emerged normal to
the ridge.
"I'll have to consult Dr. Hague about this," Dykstra said aloud to the stars.
"I'll let him do the hard calculations. Once I explain what to look for he'll
spit out the numbers in no time."
* * *
"Yes, yes, Lieutenant, oh yes. The work goes along well, oh yes, the work, the
research, it's all going along so well."
"Glad to hear it, Arie," Lieutenant Robert Nachtegall said. "But where's Rick?
And are you two ready?
I've got to have you back to the High Command by 1600 hours." They were at the
System Patrol research facility in Paracelsus crater on lunar farside. Doctors
Hague and Vander Kam had been working there for weeks.
Before Dr. Arie Hague could answer, Bob heard: "Hey, you're here already," and
Dr. Rick Vander Kam entered the lab.
"Yeah. Arie just filled me in on things," Bob said.
"Did he show you the finished unit?"
"Oh, yes, the final product," Hague said. "A wonderful device, just a
wonderful device!" He was beaming and rocking with excitement.
Rick led them over to a corner of the lab where a solid-looking packing crate
sat on the floor. Its cover leaned against the wall. Inside was a cylindrical
device. It didn't look like the kind of thing that would change the world
forever.
"That's our puppy," Rick said. "Dykstra figured out how to build it; Arie and
I perfected it. The mass converter." Rick leaned in and pointed to a
projecting tube. "Run any kind of gas into this tube;
molecular hydrogen, air hell, farts if you want to and electricity comes out
of that end with the power coupling on it. The conversion efficiency is above
ninety-nine percent, too!" Now Rick was also beaming, forming a close binary
with Hague.
Dr. Vander Kam was in his twenties, a brilliant electrical engineer snapped up
by the System Patrol to
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/KOOISTRA...EFFREY%20-%20DYKSTRA'S%20WAR
/0671319582___5.htm (7 of 20)29-12-2006 18:58:30
- Chapter 5
serve a term in the research arm of Intelligence. When the aliens had been
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]